Chapter 210: MEI of the Broken World
"End of Civilization, huh..." Elysia studied the card — the MEI depicted on it looked as though he might shatter at any moment. "What on earth did this MEI go through?"
"I don't know, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been anything good." Irene shook her head, then released the card. A ribbon of white light wrapped around it.
MEI's silhouette gradually took shape in the air. Compared to the others, he seemed to materialize unusually quickly — though that might simply have been because he was an ordinary person, with no special traits to complicate the process.
His form settled onto the ground. He opened his eyes and looked around, then slowly drew his gaze back inward. "So there really is a world after death."
Having said that, MEI acknowledged Elysia with a single nod — and then, perfectly naturally, shuffled off to the side and curled into himself.
"Um, MEI — are you alright?" Elysia looked at him crouched there in his little shell of misery. She had expected him to be in a bad state, but not quite this bad.
"...There's no 'alright' or 'not alright' anymore. None of it matters." MEI remained hunched on the ground, not lifting his head to face her. "I let everyone down."
"MEI, get up for a moment — the situation may not be quite what you're imagining." Elysia reached out to help him to his feet. MEI didn't resist. It was just as he said: he didn't care anymore.
"How is it any different." MEI's head hung low. "I'm dead. You're all dead. If this isn't the afterlife, what else could it be? Or maybe this is just my last dying hallucination."
"But whatever it is — it's really good to see all of you, at the end."
Elysia had never seen MEI this utterly defeated. For a moment she genuinely didn't know what to say.
It was then that Mobius — apparently having finally managed to wrestle herself free of that insufferable little dress — walked over and fixed MEI with a look. "Right now I'm seriously questioning whether you're actually the bastard I know."
"Mobius?" MEI lifted his head at the sound of her voice. He looked at her. Then, nothing. Just silence. "..."
Then, the moment Elysia's steadying hand left him, MEI went right back to huddling on the ground — the universal posture of a man who had decided: there's nothing left to say, I'm retreating into myself, don't bother me.
Irene scratched her head. Even for her, this was the first time she had seen MEI like this — so fragile, or perhaps more accurately, so completely given up on himself.
But it wasn't really her place to speak. She didn't know MEI personally, and Mobius and Elysia were already here.
With that thought, Irene materialized MEI's card into her hand.
[End of Civilization · MEI]
[Type: Possession Card · Logic of Continuation]
[Ability: Metamorphic Factor · Unawakened]
[Profile: Once the brilliant mind behind civilization's strategies — and a firsthand witness to its destruction. He watched his beloved fall. He watched countless comrades die for plans he had devised.
As civilization bled out around him, his own intellect became a curse: he understood their situation with absolute, merciless clarity. Civilization had ended. There would not even be another chance.
He built cenotaphs for his fallen companions. He stood before an endless field of gravestones. When he finally raised his eyes to the horizon — to that blazing, indifferent sun above the infinite ruins —
He understood. Civilization had no road left. This moment was its final hour.]
Irene finished reading and looked up at MEI. End of Civilization, hm.
"What did you go through?" Mobius stared at him, brow furrowed. "The man I know would never look like this. Get up."
MEI was, in some sense, a protégé she had brought into Fire Moth — someone she had watched grow. Seeing him this hollowed-out stirred something in Mobius that sat between concern and irritation.
"I don't care what happened to you in your world. But right now, you are going to stand up, and you are going to tell me exactly what happened."
MEI still gave no response. Mobius's expression hardened. She reached down and hauled him off the ground by force, looking him dead in the eyes.
"This is not a dying hallucination. This is not your last guilt-ridden fantasy of us passing judgment on you. So tell me — what happened over there?"
"...They died." MEI seemed to squeeze the words up from somewhere deep in his throat. "All of you — everyone — died. Because of me. Because of my arrogance. Because of my plan. You all died."
Irene gently laid a hand on Mobius's shoulder. Then she held out the Book of Memories she had already prepared and offered it to MEI. "Dr. MEI, I'd like you to take a look at this."
MEI only stared at Irene, as if searching his memory for a face that matched hers — but before he could place her, the book had already settled onto the back of his hand.
In an instant, its contents flooded into his mind. This time, Irene hadn't waited for him to open it — because she already understood. She had simply poured it in.
MEI, in this moment, had no spirit left whatsoever. Through the convenience of the Bodhi imprint and the Palace of Consciousness, Irene was able to sense the state of his thoughts. And there was nothing there.
Like a dead, still pond. Only when someone called to him did a faint ripple stir across the surface. And in the face of Mobius's confrontation, the only thing reflected in his heart was remorse.
Remorse for himself. Contempt for himself.
Contempt for the self that had gotten everyone killed.
And so Irene decided to use a more direct method — to make MEI understand, with no room for doubt, that he had left that place behind.
MEI was only an ordinary person. The sudden flood of memories hit him like a wave, and he crumpled, collapsing back into Mobius's arms. Mobius caught him on instinct, then looked up at Irene with a frown.
"What is going on with him?"
"I have never seen Dr. MEI with his will so completely broken." Eden had walked over and stood looking at him. "It is as though he has lost all hope in everything."
"Perhaps he has." Irene withdrew her hand. "End of Civilization — he witnessed the end of civilization. You could even say he was the one who buried it with his own hands."
"...Fool woman." Kalpas glanced at MEI with a sharp scoff, then his tone softened, just slightly. "How long before he wakes up?"
"I'm not sure. Compared to how I've done it with others, what I just did was a brute-force flood." Irene looked at MEI, limp in Mobius's arms. "Dr. MEI is only an ordinary person, so it may take a little time."
"But how did he survive in the first place? During the Herrscher of the Legion's era — didn't he put on that thing?" Mobius adjusted her hold, letting MEI rest gently against her shoulder.
"Based on the degree of his Honkai corruption, he shouldn't have lived long — I'm quite certain of that."
"Sometimes it really does come down to a sliver of luck. This Dr. MEI found the metamorphic factor suited to him." Irene looked at him. Of all the cards she possessed, this Dr. MEI was, in a sense, the simplest.
Even if she transformed into Dr. MEI, it would serve no practical purpose — he had no special abilities, and possession alone would never grant her his mind.
As for awakening his metamorphic factor, Irene had no intention of attempting that. It was far too difficult, and beyond that, unnecessary — as a Herrscher herself, she was already stronger than what an awakened metamorphic factor could offer.
MEI's greatest strength lay in his intellect. But to borrow that intellect, MEI would have to be willing to help. And would a MEI who had witnessed the End of Civilization — was he even capable of that?
MEI's will, however, didn't keep them waiting long. He stirred awake from Mobius's arms, stood up on his own, and this time didn't immediately collapse back to the ground. He simply looked at Irene with those hollow eyes.
"Everything from just now... was it real?"
"Yes." Irene gave a small nod. "I give you my word — everything you just learned is real."
"...Ha... haha..." A sound escaped MEI's throat — a laugh, though whether it was self-mockery or helplessness was hard to say. "So if I had just died back then, before I found my metamorphic factor... that would have been the better ending after all."
"..." Irene said nothing. Sometimes, that was simply how it went — a single thought, one small branching point changed, and the outcome shifted entirely.
Every card she carried was born from a coincidence, from some tiny divergence. But those divergences didn't always produce the results anyone would have wanted. Like now — MEI probably wished more than anything that he had died back then.
"MEI." Elysia gently steadied him. "This is not your fault."
"No. It is my fault. Even if I survived, I never should have drawn up that plan." MEI shook his head, hard. "I should have made everyone hide. I never should have sent you all to fight. I should have — I should have——"
Mobius stepped forward. She looked at MEI, and for the first time in a long while, she seemed to carry herself like a senior, the way she had in the very beginning — back when she was the one who had first brought MEI into Fire Moth.
She had been there, watching him grow, until he had grown into a scientist standing at her own level.
"Look up." Mobius held his gaze. "Look at me. This is not your world anymore. Everyone here — we're still alive. Do you understand?"
"As for the choices you made — we've all made choices we regret. Sitting here and drowning in regret is worthless..."
Even as she spoke, Mobius quietly glanced back over her shoulder — at Klein, who had been watching the whole scene intently. Regret. As if any of them had been spared that.
Every single person Irene carried — every "what-if" from another world, by Irene's own account — had been born from some source of regret that one of them had lived with.
Listening to Mobius's voice, MEI lifted his head. And in his eyes, something finally began to gather — a faint, fragile light.
"The Honkai doesn't stop for our regrets. So use that brain of yours and think — what is it that you actually need to do right now?"
Irene looked at MEI, and reached out her hand. "Dr. MEI, you may have already witnessed one End of Civilization. But this civilization — it can still have one more chance. So I'm asking you: help us."
"For a tomorrow... that neither of us has ever seen."
— Hyperion · Medical Bay —
"There you go — just rest and take it easy from here." Seele looked gently at the patient before her and gave the bandage a firm last tug, securing it around their hand.
"Do be more careful at work though. This time you were lucky — it was just a cut."
"Thank you, Miss Seele." Xiao Lin nodded, though his eyes never quite left Seele's face. "Oh, actually — you know Dr. Tesla and the others fairly well, don't you? Do you happen to know why they've stopped letting us into the factory lately?"
"That I... honestly don't know." Seele found Xiao Lin's gaze a little unnerving and found herself instinctively looking away, though she still answered him. "The Doctors probably have their own reasons."
After confirming that the bandaging was done, Seele stood, gathered the bandage roll, and began listing the things Xiao Lin needed to watch out for.
"Oh, of course, the Doctors always have their own considerations." Xiao Lin nodded. His eyes stayed on Seele's back. Beneath the table, his other hand lifted — and then set down again.
For just a moment, his gaze seemed to become a kaleidoscope, flickering through an endless cascade of thoughts, as though his very consciousness were locked in an argument with something else inside him.
In the end, Xiao Lin stood, turned, and walked out. The sound of the door closing caught Seele's attention.
She set down what she was holding and turned around to find an empty room. Strange — she hadn't finished talking. Why had he just left like that?
[How rude. She bandaged his wound and he didn't even say thank you.]
"It's fine — maybe he had something urgent to attend to." Ever-charitable Seele quickly found a reason to excuse him.
After putting everything away, Seele was just about to sit down and rest when the corner of her eye caught something — a small black object, left behind on the seat where Xiao Lin had been sitting.
"What's this?" Seele picked up the black... invitation. An odd one, though. Because it bore only a single line.
[In a grand theater, we have saved you a seat. We sincerely invite you to join us — come, and enjoy the magnificent feast.]
Strange as it was, Seele quickly grabbed the invitation and moved to push the door open. It belonged to someone who had dropped it, after all — if it was some kind of ticket, keeping it would be a problem.
But the very instant her hand touched the door handle, Black Seele, somewhere deep in the back of her mind, suddenly called out.
[Seele, wait!]
It was already too late. Seele had pushed the door open — but outside was not the familiar steel corridor she knew. It was a crumbling theater, built from rough stone.
"?!" Seele stared at her surroundings in shock, wheeling around to look behind her — only to find that the door she had come through, along with the handle she had been clutching just seconds ago, had vanished without a trace.
Seele flipped her wrist, and a great scythe materialized in her hand. She swept it around her, scanning the space in every direction.
"Seele, what's going on?"
[Don't ask me, I have no idea.] Black Seele shook her head. [All I know is this doesn't look good. Can you reach anyone?]
"No — no signal." Seele glanced at her tactical terminal, saw the no-signal indicator, and shook her head.
Just then, her tactical terminal let out a sudden, sustained shriek — the sound of nails dragged slowly down a chalkboard.
"Ugh!" Seele flung it away from her. The terminal skidded across the ground. The horrible noise finally stopped.
What replaced it was something like a full orchestra swelling into a grand overture — the sound of something making its entrance. Then a single golden high-heeled shoe stepped down onto the fallen terminal.
"Welcome, welcome, new guest — welcome to the Theater of Domination!!!"
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